First published 2012
The Catholic Church established the Inquisition in 1231, and it persisted for nearly seven centuries until its final execution of a Spanish schoolmaster in 1826. Cullen Murphy argues that the institution's influence extends far beyond its official end. Murphy examines figures from the Knights Templar to Torquemada, from Galileo to Graham Greene, showing how the Inquisition targeted not just heretics and Jews but a broad range of victims. The institution pioneered surveillance, censorship, and systematic interrogation techniques that secular authorities later adopted. Murphy travels from Vatican archives to Guantánamo detention camps to Nazi filing cabinets, tracing how inquisitorial methods and thinking shaped modern persecution. The book connects historical practices with contemporary forms of institutional control and systematic oppression, offering readers a framework for understanding how past techniques of persecution continue to influence present-day institutions and practices.
Genres: history, non-fiction, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism
Setting: Vatican, Guantánamo, Nazi Germany
Period: 1231, 1826
325 pages · Kindle Edition · Mariner Books
Content warnings: torture